


In Which Merlin and Lancelot are Prodigiously Hungover

by Scribe



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. A very silly ficlet, AU sometime after...season 3, let's say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Merlin and Lancelot are Prodigiously Hungover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fizzyblogic (phizzle)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/gifts).



The first fact to make it to Merlin's awareness was the knowledge that he had clearly imbibed a bit too much at some point in the fairly recent past. Put another way, he was fearsomely hungover. Even sitting still there was a terrible throbbing radiating out from his temples to what felt, improbably, like his entire skull, and he didn't dare contemplate a simile for the taste in his mouth. At least it was quite dim in the...

He opened his eyes, cautiously.

...in the wine cellar with Lancelot. Well, that answered the how, if not the why.

"Good morning, Merlin," mumbled Lancelot without opening his own eyes, displaying a great knightly talent for being aware of his surroundings. Or possibly Merlin had groaned.

"Morning," he returned. He wasn't actually sure it _was_ morning, come to think of it, but didn't see any reason to argue. His slow-moving thoughts were mostly occupied with trying to remember how he'd gotten here. He had a vague idea that something sort of risky or un-thought-out had happened, and he'd wanted to forget about it.

"Did we have sex?" he asked after a moment.

"I don't think so," said Lancelot. "No evidence."

Merlin contemplated this. He wasn't sore in any of the places one might expect soreness, and his clothing- huh, he appeared to be wearing a heavily embroidered robe sort of thing. At least, he hoped it was a robe. The possibility that it might be a dress really didn't bear thinking about- his clothing was a little rumpled but bore, as Lancelot had said, no evidence of anything more than too much drink. Then again, there were numerous ways to work around a very manly robe type thing without soiling it. Ways that didn't leave any evidence at all, hah!

"I swallow," he pointed out proudly.

"Yes, but were you sober enough to do up my laces afterward? I certainly wasn't."

Merlin peered at him in the gloom, following his gesture to- yup, those laces were definitely done up. That was probably a no on the sex, then. If he'd been sober enough to straighten up clothing he would have been sober enough to remember.

Wait a moment, put in part of his brain, you've missed something. Merlin obligingly traced back along the line of his thoughts. Memory, soberness, clothing, laces. Lancelot. Yes, said the back bit of his brain. Hold it right there. I wasn't done.

Lancelot did not appear to have a robe type thing. In fact, he was not wearing anything at all other than the aforementioned well-laced trousers. This, after a moment's consideration, was explained by the bundle of cloth stuffed between his back and the shelves. Merlin couldn't quite tell what it was, but it was definitely in Pendragon colors and seemed to be some kind of velvet. Lancelot was sprawled languidly against it- shirtless, it bore repeating- with his head tipped back and eyes still closed. His hair was just the slightest bit mussed, possibly from the disrobing. Or dis-whatever-ing. He looked like the muse of a very disreputable painter.

"...why _didn't_ we have sex?" Merlin managed, after a moment.

Lancelot did open his eyes for that.

"Because you're in love with the king and I'm in love with the queen," he said.

Oh. _Right_. That rang a bell. Arthur and Gwen's wedding last night, as the final event in the grand celebration of Arthur's first year on the throne. He himself had been officially appointed court sorcerer earlier in the evening. The ritual that Geoffrey had dredged up for them had apparently been old enough to have some actual magic in it; there had been an odd sense of something building as he dutifully recited the words, and when he knelt and looked up at Arthur it had snapped decisively into place at the edges of his thought, the faintest sort of bond.

He remembered being a little off-balance with it at first, and then thoroughly annoyed. It was bad enough that he was always, invariably, aware of where Arthur was in a room, couldn't help tracking him, just through his own stupidity. He didn't need the magical echo of Arthur's activity through the entire castle on top of it.

He'd been fine through the wedding- pleased, even- but by the second or third hour of subsequent feasting with the reflection of Arthur's joy and pride (and increasing horniness) in the back of his mind he'd given up on manners and gone to sit with Lancelot, who was busy being a stoically heartbroken island in a sea of carousing knights. They'd sat sneaking glances at their glowingly happy monarchs for a while, and then Merlin had decided that the one thing misery loved more than company was drunkenness and a place to safely complain without having to use euphemisms to keep one's own head safely on one's shoulders.

Well, two things.

Luckily, Merlin had a long, mostly inglorious and recent past as a servant of Camelot. Hence the knowledge of the disused wine cellar; hence the sneaking away from the celebration, and the night spent apparently not having sex.

"You know, we still could," said Merlin, sorting the last of his memories back into place and still finding no decent deterrent. "It would be like a sort of consolation prize commiseration...thing."

"That's what you said last night, about the wine."

Ah. He probably had, at that.

"Well, a second consolation prize?"

"Merlin, I'm flattered, but do you really think you can move that much right now? I'm doubting my own ability to stand."

"...Fair point." Merlin tested the theory by bending his head forward to rest it on his knees. Yup, even that set the headache pounding away again.

"Do something about that, can't you?" said Lancelot, waving his hands around in the vague sort of meaningless gesture he used to indicate magic. No need for that anymore, thought Merlin suddenly. He could just ask outright. It was a bizarre idea, sort of unimaginable and amazing and slightly terrifying at the same time.

Gauis made hangover potion regularly enough. He knew very well where it was, but elected to summon a bottle from Arthur's chambers instead, because Arthur was radiating sleepy joy and not caring a whit that Merlin was cramped and headachy from sleeping on the floor of a wine cellar- which was, admittedly in a somewhat roundabout way, entirely his fault. Merlin refrained from bopping him on the head with the bottle only because of Gwen curled up happily in the same bed.

In any event, it was great fun to visualize the potion bobbing purposefully through the hallways of Camelot. It was unlikely that many people were up and about the morning after the celebration (if it was indeed morning, which he still wasn't completely sure of), but whoever did see it would probably just go on their way with the conclusion that the court sorcerer, unsurprisingly, was suffering from a bit of a hangover. The idea that no one was going to go running to Arthur yelling about treason and danger was such a pleasant one that Merlin was grinning to himself by the time the potion floated into the room. He even selflessly directed it over to Lancelot first.

Lancelot downed three swallows before holding it out with a noise of disgust. It seemed to be a universal rule that hangover potions had to taste absolutely vile, thought Merlin, only managing two himself. He rested his head against the shelves, waiting for it to kick in.

Lancelot pulled himself into an actual sitting position, dragged the rumpled clothing out from behind him, and then paused to put his head in his hands.

"Ugh," he said. "All right. First step, standing up. Then maybe new clothes before facing the world." He shot half a smile at Merlin through his fingers. "But if Gwen comes to breakfast all newlywed and beautiful, I might possibly need some consoling."


End file.
